A significant portion of television viewing is linear programming on cable networks (e.g., ESPN, TNT, CNBC). These networks are carried by multichannel video programming distributors (“MVPDs”), which are services that provide multiple television channels to customers through a set top box (“STB”) installed at the subscriber's location. Examples of MVPDs include Charter, Comcast, Altice, Cox and others. Linear programming consists of a continuous audio/video feed for the duration of a cable network program or program segment.
The cable networks identify within each linear programming stream available time slots (“avails”) for insertion of advertising content (“ads”) locally by an MVPD. In a typical scenario, approximately 15 minutes per hour of advertising are filled from national advertising campaigns which run throughout the entire country on that cable network. Another 2-3 minutes per hour are filled with local advertising content, either by splicing the ad content into the programming stream or by stopping and starting the programming stream allowing for local ad insertion gear to fill the time with commercials.
Traditionally, linear ad insertion platforms do not communicate with digital advertising platforms. The standards for communication are distinct to each and do not cross connect. Traditional ad insertion utilizes fixed schedules by network and local avail opportunity for ad playout. Traditional linear ad insertion platforms do not reference or track performance based on impressions sought or delivered nor do they provide any additional dynamic targeting parameters (traditional platforms may provide sub-zone capabilities for hard-wired sub designated market area (“DMA”) targeting ability). Typically, 80% of all revenues run on the “top” 20 to 25 cable networks. However, when over-night inventory is accounted for, the sell-thru percentage on the top 20 to 25 cable networks is significantly reduced, meaning that there is a substantial amount of “unsold” avails and substantial incremental opportunities for targeted audience-centric marketing.
Thus, the growth of traditional cable television advertising has been flat as advertisers have moved their resources to take advantage of the growing consumer demand for digital media, along with the ease of placing digital ads on websites through digital ad exchanges and through programmatic platforms onto desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. Almost any digital ad server can place an ad on any platform based on data to target the right consumer. In addition, digital technology enables the ability to use data to hyper target the right audience in filling advertising avails. This ability to hyper-target the right “audience” on any digital media property without a preset schedule and only paying for the actual impressions or impression counts, which are accurate to industry standard acceptance, and thus maximizing ad spending, is why digital advertising revenues have grown exponentially, along with the increase in digital video consumption.
For television advertising placement to work as effectively and efficiently, the MVPDs and their advertising partners must address legacy standards and technology.
The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (“SCTE”) has promulgated a relevant standard, SCTE 35, for defining a “cue message” to specify how to fill the avails in the programming television stream, entitled Digital Program Insertion Cueing Message for Cable (2016). SCTE 35 is the core signaling standard for advertising and distribution control of content for content providers and content distributors, and thus, SCTE 35 cue signals are incorporated into the programming feed and used to identify advertising breaks and programming content. In addition, virtually all content providers regularly publish their programming schedules, and more importantly for advertising purposes, the commercial break structures for programs, which may be used to create corresponding linear television schedules.
For online digital advertising, the Interactive Advertising Bureau has set a standard specification for communications between digital ad servers and digital video players called the Video Ad Serving Template (“VAST”). Thus, digital ads served according to the VAST protocol can be played by any digital video player.
However, since MVPDs may utilize different platforms of hardware and software for distribution of the program content, in general they do not utilize the infrastructure required for generating or processing VAST ad calls. In that case, a VAST tag must be specially configured and integrated in the ad insertion infrastructure to allow distribution on a particular distribution platform. The differences in distribution platforms, evidenced by use of different operating systems and set top boxes, presents a measure of difficulty for inserting ads for different MVPDs. Therefore, it would be desirable for an online digital ad serving network to be able to use standard digital ad insertion workflows to access the MVPD's television inventory. Having the capability to serve ads universally onto a variety of different television distribution platforms would enable digital ad serving exchanges to be applied to the ad avails in linear programming of cable TV networks, as well as to over-the-top (“OTT”) platforms such as Hulu, Netflix and SlingTV, and privately-managed IPTV networks, without having a preset schedule of breaks. This would enable more avails in linear TV programming to be bought, sold, and measured, and combined with the ability of data processing to utilize audiences as the target and ad impressions as the currency, such an improvement would effectively integrate the linear and digital video advertising ecosystems. This capability would also increase the potential revenues for addressable advertising, namely, sending an individual ad to an individual set top box based on audience targeting data.